Stini—no, the whole race called Heroes—is fascinating.

Yes, a race. I’ve never taken Heroes as human. In talent, battle, magic, swordcraft, few can surpass them. At most one or two per era.

Each generation, their kind stands on the peak of mortal power like a lone summit.

I suspect that’s why humans fear them and keep them at arm’s length, like fire they can’t hold.

People don’t understand these naive yet overwhelming fools. Their wins look like accidents, like lucky stars that keep falling their way.

The most interesting thing isn’t “they win by miracles.” It’s “they stand with justice,” like banners in a storm.

They must call themselves justice to fight.

Or they must convince themselves—lie to themselves—that they are justice to fight.

Lose the banner of “greater good,” and without the name of justice, a Hero stops being a peerless savior. They’re just another person in the dust. Through the long Silver Era, a few Demon Kings broke Stini’s ancestors, dyed their souls and bodies black. Yet they never reached what a Hero can reach, in theory.

In my past life, I killed Augustus and remade him as a Headless Knight, a top-tier soldier class, with the soul and body of a Hero.

Even so, the transformed Augustus was shockingly weak. If not for Stini’s trauma and her insistence on fighting alone, she’d have cut him down in two or three strokes.

Sages sometimes call Heroes “the Sword of Justice,” swung only for justice. There’s truth in that.

My take: it’s a bloodline oath, a covenant inherited. Swear to hold justice, and power answers like thunder to a bell.

This time too.

If Stini can’t judge a target as truly deserving of punishment, her sword and magic, however bright, are dead blades. She must see the Divine Being before her as “false law,” as “injustice,” to draw out everything.

She’s always leaned that way.

So Heroes often stumble at a first meeting, and the wind turns against them.

Against a Divine Being, a broken Holy Sword alone is a price we can still accept, like losing a shield to save a life.

She lifts the broken blade. Left slash, then right slash. No terrain to use. No weak point to plot against.

One on one. Straight up.

If Stini’s strikes are “heroic”—a bonfire of fight, unmatched force, and peerless craft—she moves like a wildcat. Leap, slip, roll, jump-cut, sweep. She wrings power and grace from every fiber.

Then the Deity of Justice, Justus, fights as a Divine Being—proud, absolute, elegant. He disdains dodging. He disdains running. Noble and unhurried, He presses in like a closing tide. After that first cut drew blood, nothing else pierced the warding circle cast by His scepter.

Stini keeps attacking, yet she’s driven back, ragged as a flag in rain.

He keeps defending, yet He stands square and suppresses her with sheer authority.

“Why do you get to declare the mortal world no longer needs absolute justice? Fool. I know you. Standing against you, who were more—monsters or humans?”

He quickens. Every swing seeks her broken sword, knocks it aside, breaks her guard. He steps onto her evasive line. She halts. Only inches of air between them.

He’s seeking an answer for Himself, eager to cast off Stini’s doubt—deny justice, and a god denies Himself, like a sun eclipsed.

Maybe anger and frenzy churn in Him. If He fought in full, even legendary magic and Immunity Privilege wouldn’t bind Him for long.

But more than force, He cares about souls, and a debate that defines His own name, like a verdict stamped in stone.

“Answer me, so-called Hero. Those fools who claim the name of justice bring sorrow and ruin. How many times do you want to watch? Do you truly want to save this world? Know this. Demonfolk aren’t the only end of man. Humans are the greater threat to humans.”

Stini doesn’t dare meet the halo behind His head. That radiance is a great river of light, running to the Sea of Brilliance, spring of all good and beauty.

She trusts her theory. Yet the world’s root is a flood of thought that drowns any mind. She refuses to be blended into a justice she cannot accept.

“Humans have more enemies, but I don’t regret it! I can say this: every clash of justice has worth. In each fight, we admit we may fall to the other’s blade. If we win, our justice steadies. If we lose, we bless the victor. That’s our dispute. Because we clash, people advance. Because we differ, we don’t march to a dead end.”

“Your conviction? Ha. A joke. One question. Have you ever killed?”

In a blade duel, the proper play is to slip past the line, step in, and kick. Break balance if you can, like tipping a stone pillar.

Stini does just that by the book. But her foe isn’t human. It’s a Divine Being, beyond human measure and weight.

She drives in and stamps on His wound. The Deity of Justice stands like bedrock, like the earth itself, unmoving. He crushes His scepter down and sweeps Stini away like a fallen leaf.

She rights herself midair and lands clean. She’s always been quick, fox-light on her feet.

He disdains pursuit. He plants the scepter, voice cold as iron pulled from snow.

“Fool. You’ve never killed. You don’t know that ache. That boy carried it all for you—the sin of killing, the groundwork for victory. He let you always be the victor, looking down with lofty pity. You don’t get it. Your justice has never been denied. The Demon King Anna, the Truth Seekers Assembly’s chair Nagash, Maki, Kairi, Justin—facts keep proving it’s someone else’s fault.”

“So you can’t feel the pain of being denied. You don’t understand the unwillingness of those at your feet. The grief when their justice is snapped in two. You never put yourself there. Blessings for the other side? Conflict with ‘value’? Nonsense. It’s you projecting. Be glad. A good father. Good friends. They shielded you so well even I praise their gentleness.”

“Too strong, so you don’t grasp the weak. So with creeds. You keep winning because you happen to stand with justice. You needn’t hear the losers howl. Like that legendary magic—Hero’s Requiem? Those martyrs who do evil for greater good don’t need your understanding or praise. They live for the greater good. They die for it. They care only for their own justice. Your respect is worthless.”

He’s not wrong.

Stini isn’t a spoiled princess. But yes, we have sheltered her too well—not her body, her spirit. When trouble came, I took the fall. Stini never had to shoulder the ugliest parts.

He’s not wrong. But “not wrong” is all it is, like a lantern that lights only itself.

In this world, a theory convinces yourself first. Convincing others is another mountain to climb.

Stini squares her stance again. She wipes the blood from her lip with the back of her hand.

The world of Hero’s Requiem has no cover. Nothing. Either you fall, or you claw up and fight on, dirty and bare.

“I know. I know it all.”

She speaks softly, like a bell for the dead crossing a river. She sketches a prayer over her heart.

“I know none of this promises a satisfying end. I know they can’t beat me. About my naivete—you’re right. But if we speak of my stubbornness, I must object.”

“I chose this, knowing. Ha. Even if I wanted to shut my eyes and play cute, pretend ignorance, a reliable vice-captain would slap me awake and force me to look.” She glances at me, eyes warm as tea in winter.

“Losers fall. Winners keep walking. That’s my final decision on how I meet strife, and which road I take. Some will regret. Some will curse. I don’t care. I’ll bear it alone. That’s a Hero’s duty.”

“It’s a rough, bleak, cold way to settle things. But it suits this age. It suits martyrs, black heroes, and idiot Heroes, doesn’t it?”

“Maybe we’ll be unwilling. At least after a fight like this, everyone is sated. Some fall satisfied. Some move on satisfied. We tried. We burned ourselves to live our chosen justice. As for the result… I won’t pray. If I lose, it just means someone else’s faith burns hotter. Unwilling as I am, so be it.”

“But…”

Stini pauses and steps forward, like a blade leaving the sheath.

She stares straight into the god’s eyes. The halo lights her pupils. Fire rims her sockets.

Her voice stays level, strong as a drawn bow.

“I won’t scream.”

“Because I chose this road.”

“Even if my skewed justice leads to a bottomless pit of misery. No words to say. No vendetta to take. No grievance to voice.”

“It’s still my choice.”

“Divine Being, even if it displeases you, even if it’s ungrand, we humans have the right to choose our future, our will, our fate. Our souls are ours. Not even gods get to steer them.”

Stini raises a human voice like a torch in wind.

“If you split good and evil in two, fuse all justice into one, make thought a single line—keep that world. We don’t want it.”

“Divine Being, you don’t love this world. Your era has already set. Your old ‘evil-justice’ should sink with it, into history as a sign. That’s the only end.”

“The Hero, Stini Saya, declares it here.”